


for a little while, stay with me

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Presenting:, SO, Vines, cursing btw, implied sex, ive been on a korra kick for a bit, lance is a fool and keith loves him anyway, meme references because these r memey bois, red white n royal blue: voltron edition, vague references to varrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Okay. It’sokay.Lance is a big boy. He’s two months away from turning twenty-four. He has his own apartment. He’s a world-famous model, for spirits’ sake. He should be able to get over a minuscule crush.Sure, it might be a crush on his supposed-to-be sworn enemy, but it’s also just a crush and Lance knows everything that there is to be known about crushes. He gets them all the time. He knows how to deal with them.And there is a small voice in his head that asks softly, when were Keith and him only everfriends?
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27
Collections: anonymous





	for a little while, stay with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiimnewhere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiimnewhere/gifts).

> post-korra avatar au. like, i'd say around 2019ish in terms of technology. have fun.

In the South, it's always cold. That's like, the entire selling point. It's the South Pole, the spirit portals, yadda yadda, but the whole  _ thing _ about the South is that it's cold as balls. 

So when it's not cold as balls, Lance starts to get a little wary. 

He mentions it to his sisters a few times. They make distracted comments about it and leave it at that. So he brings it up with his mother. She tells him that spring is coming soon. (It's literally December, but okay. Sure. Whatever.) 

They have all of these fancy new technology things in the South now to check some weird weather stuff thanks to the Avatar flitting around and pushing his nose into the wrong things. At least he's handsome...?

Lance doesn't like the Avatar much. Sure, he’s charming and suave and all, the “balancer” of the world or whatever, but he’s got an air to him that reeks of  _ i’m better than you and i know it,  _ and even though Lance might just be misunderstanding the whole thing, he doesn’t vibe with the Avatar. He doesn't like the prissy kid ruling the Earth Kingdom much, either. The fire lord's son is… unknown. Lance hasn’t met him yet.

As the son of one of the world leaders, he grew up with the other kid-kings and it's easy to say that he dislikes every single one of them. Except maybe Pidge. She's okay. But she's not a bender, so she doesn't really count. 

Hunk is a bender, but his cousin would have been the Earth emperor (if it weren’t for that one bastard that made the Earth Empire a republic), and Lance kind of despises the would-be Earth emperor, so by association, Hunk's value is slightly diminished. But he’s still great, of course, because  _ Hunk, _ and also because he’s Lance’s best friend. His muchacho in crime. The closest bastard to Lance’s heart.

Thankfully, there's no one leader of the Air Nomads. They just fly around everywhere, so establishing a proper hierarchy is probably just pure bullshit. Lance would have definitely gotten fed up with their sanctimonious spiritual preaching. 

Lance thinks that the South is getting a bit too warm for what's supposed to be a chilly winter (according to those weird instruments, the coldest in the past fifty years) and it's unnerving. He doesn't like unnerving. 

* * *

He gets his answer a week later, when the Fire ambassador visits, with the kid of the Fire Lord. They come in via dragon. Lance hates them instantly. No wonder it had been becoming warmer all of a sudden. Those fire-breathers were probably burning everything down and melting all of those beautiful glaciers. 

His mother tells him to behave. His father tells him to do whatever, so long as he doesn't piss off the Fire delegation. Lance thinks that he probably will, just by being in their presence, and opts to stay out of the whole mess the state dinner will probably devolve to, and takes Blue to the spirit portals. 

Technically, he's not allowed inside the spirit realm. His parents forbade him from ever going after he angered a bunch of spirits and nearly got himself trapped in the Fog of Lost Souls. But at times like this, he goes inside, as a way to escape. 

The spirit world is softer, with rounder edges and more mellifluous lines. There are more plants. Well. There are always more plants in the spirit world—the South Pole didn't have any. 

Blue likes to chill under a tree, as a normal polar bear-dog does, and Lance likes to explore. The ruins of the war against Vaatu is still there, surrounding the portals like coffee stains that never wash out. Lance had tried to smooth the land out with water, like the ocean did to sharp stones, but it never worked. Maybe it was something about spirit rocks that did it.

The spirit water near the portals is especially potent, and Lance usually brings along a waterskin to collect some each time he visits. This time, he'd brought a book on the theory of plantbending and hurricane making. He'd heard stories of the legendary Katara making every raindrop in a storm freeze to blades of ice. He kind of wants to do that, too. 

Also, imagine having that on your tech sheet. 

He sits down next to Blue, rests his head on her furry chest, and thinks that it's not that bad of a day. 

Until—

"You're the Chief's kid, right?"

Lance looks up, brow furrowed, and lips pinched. "Who are you to ask?"

A human is standing in front of him, in full Fire kingdom regalia. Red embellishments, black robes, long, ribbony black hair. There is soft red pigment on his eyelids, Lance realizes a second later. He has a second realization: the Fire brat is standing in front of him, hands on his knees, and he looks surprisingly… not bastardy. Since when did Fire princes like makeup?

"Nobody," the prince says with a smile curling around his lips. 

"Then I'm nobody to you," Lance responds, and goes back to mentally working out the stances for each bending technique in his head. 

"Cool," the fire prince says. "You mind if I sit down?"

Lance waves a hand. "Do whatever. Just don't burn anything down."

“I’d never.”

* * *

And that is how his sister finds them, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder against a tall oak, trying to figure out a way to legally bloodbend. The Fire brat wasn't an uptight prick after all. Lance is pleasantly surprised.

"You're not allowed in the spirit world," Veronica hisses, grabbing Lance by the ear.

"OW!" 

"Yeah, yeah, tell it to Mom, you little fool. You dragged the prince here with you too?" Veronica gives him a scathing look. "Bastard."

Lance sticks his tongue out at her. "I hate you."

"Yeah, me too, you little shit."

"For the record," the prince says, standing up and shaking his hair out effortlessly, looking as if he was in some sort of stupid commercial, "he didn't bring me here. I was exploring and I saw the glowy thing. So obviously I followed it. Here I am now."

"Your Highness, you could've died," Veronica says, now sounding like a nursemaid. "Imagine the paperwork. Have some sympathy for me, will you?"

"Next time," the prince says with a smirk. 

Lance gets locked in his rooms for the next week, but he gets the prince's number and then belatedly realizes that they have no service in the South. 

* * *

"You suck." 

Lance sighs. "I know. How was I supposed to know we didn't have wifi down here? Or service, for that matter."

"Because, you know," Keith says irritably, "you'd use it? Or you'd notice a lack of it if you used it?"

"I didn't see a telegram until I was like, sixteen. That was three years ago. I didn't see a phone until... I don't know. But the first time I saw them was definitely not a while ago."

"Waterbenders," says Keith.

"Firebenders," says Lance, in the same tone. 

"I think all of your bending would've fried the circuits, anyway," Keith says with a shrug. "Water and electricity don't mix."

"I have control over my bending," Lance says defensively, hunching his shoulders to his cheeks. "Asshole."

"Uh huh," says Keith, and Lance relaxes a little, because sure, it's been three months since they last even breathed near each other, but at least they're not awkward with each other. At least. It’s not easy making friends when your parents run the place.

Lance thinks that Keith is bearable at the very most. He also thinks that this is going to become a problem very fast.

* * *

He is twenty when he gets himself kicked out of the South Pole for a year. (In his defense, how was he supposed to know that going in the Tree of Time was like, an exclusive Airbender/Avatar thing? It wasn’t  _ his  _ fault the Tree decided to light itself on fire like an overexcited relighting candle.)

He is twenty and two days when he decides to go to Republic City and take his shot at pro-bending. 

He is twenty and three weeks when he realizes that he knows desk bending, textbook bending, and that he knows absolutely nothing of pro-bending techniques, and that he is absolutely fucked. But at least he's getting good money off of royalties, because the gift shop has taken to selling tchotchkes with his face on them. And underwear. It would be embarrassing, but they make good money.

He is twenty and six months when his team (the Dazzling Lion-Turtles) wins the championship and he lands a permanent spot on the pro-bending circuit. There isn't much of a competition after that, no fighting with his siblings to get the most attention. He really does love his sisters, but they're attention hogs. And so is he. They're not really a good mix. 

Lance buys a swanky high-rise apartment in Downtown, gets a side gig as a model, buys too many clothes and kisses too many people at midnight and thinks that this. This is the life. 

Keith visits Republic City when Lance is twenty and seven months, and he looks surprised at Lance now. Suave and chic and handsome. At least, that's what everyone said about him, so it must be true, or else he would've never become a model.

"Nice place," he comments, looking up to see the sun bursting in through the skylights. "Your decision to get the penthouse is... financially unwise but aesthetically, very fuckin' wise. I love this place. I'm dropping my hotel."

In Lance's stomach, there is a large, bottomless hole. Rocks ring around the hole like a halo, and sometimes, they'll fall into that hole, and then Lance feels like he's falling down and floating up into the blue sky (blue as his eyes) all at once. He’s good about controlling when those rocks fall. 

Being around Keith makes a lot of those stones drop, very many, and rapidly. Lance doesn't quite know how to feel about it. He hasn't told anyone about it—except from Blue. She knows everything about him. He's probably boring. Or maybe exciting. To a polar bear-dog, his life must seem insignificant.

"I don't have a guest room," Lance says, as if that's going to stop Keith. 

"How big is your bed?" 

Ah. So this is how they were doing it. 

Lance shoots him a rakish grin. "Big."

* * *

He is twenty and eleven months when he decides to be a pro-bender, full time. Everyone knows that Veronica was going to become the next chief, anyway, and the positions of heir and spare have been quietly filled up in the time that Lance was gone, his younger siblings discreetly slotting into place as if that was how it was always supposed to be. 

It’s fine, anyway. He pretends as if it doesn’t bother him and grins too big, neon lights glinting off of his brand-sponsored teeth.

Keith visits. Often. Much too often. And he always refuses to get a hotel, saying some bullshit excuse that it's better for the environment or whatever if he just stays with Lance. 

Lance always points out that he doesn't have a guest bedroom. He has the master bedroom, and then he knocked down the other four bedrooms to make a little training room for bending. Also, he built a pool. So there's not much room for a spare bedroom.

But Keith, as always, asks how big Lance's bed is, and Lance, as always, is reduced to telling him the truth: his bed is a _big_ _bitch_.

It's so big that both Keith and Lance can lay on it, spread-eagled, and not touch each other. To roll over and to hit Keith is to cross an ocean of mattress and sheets. There is that, at least, thankfully. If his bed was any smaller, Lance wouldn't be okay at this moment. 

The stones keep dropping like flies, down down down, never hitting the bottom of that pit, just falling. Just like Lance. 

* * *

It's spring. Lance is twenty-three and it's  _ spring _ (already), pollen on the breeze and stupid little annoying children screaming in the park. The cherry blossoms are especially pretty this year, blooming fat and pink and bursting with fragrance. Keith likes to visit during cherry blossom season, which is stupid and ironic, because everyone knows that the Fire Nation has the best cherry blossom trees. 

There is a stupid little thing in Lance's head that hopes that Keith comes here every year for him, and there is a smart little thing that tells him that he is being very dumb and delusional and that Keith is here because he prefers the cherry blossoms here than to those of the Fire Nation. 

The sun is shining bright, glinting off of spirit-green grass, sky as blue as the ocean. Keith's hair is always growing longer and longer, and Lance has the sudden, stupid urge to gather it up in one fist and maybe braid it, see the thick strands of hair join together to make a coiling rope of black. 

"Do you think you'll stay here forever?"

Lance looks to the side, where Keith has his face tilted up to the sky, purple eyes like the night sky under the sun. "What do you mean?"

"Well," says Keith, turning to meet Lance's eyes, "do you think you'll stay here? Republic City, that is. Forever?"

Lance’s mouth is dry, too dry for a waterbender. “I don’t—I don’t know. I’m only twenty-three.”

Keith’s eyes are wild and piercing and violet and Lance thinks,  _ oh no. _ “You must have some idea what you want to do later, when you retire from pro-bending. You’re not going to have those joints forever, Lance.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lance frowns. There are too many stones falling. Something is going terribly wrong. “I know. Stop sounding like my mom. What about  _ you,  _ huh? What are you going to do later?”

“I’m the heir and currently, there is no spare. What do you  _ think _ I’m going to be doing?”

“I dunno,” Lance says. “You could run away or something. Turn the Fire Nation into a republic like that Earth bitch did.”

“Gross,” says Keith. 

“Very.”

“But you know,” Keith says, “what are you going to do? Like, in the future. Five years. Ten years. You’re not going to be a pro-bender forever.”

“I know.”

“And..?” Keith prompts.

The words,  _ I’d like to be with you _ , sit on his tongue and Lance is terrified at both the fact that he’s even  _ thinking _ those words and the prospect of ever saying them out loud.

* * *

“You’re fucked,” Pidge tells him over a plate of baozi. She bites into one and a smear of kimchi graces her cheek. 

Lance groans and smacks his head onto the grease-sticky table. Street food is always better at night, and Little Ba Sing Se has the best of them all. Pidge decided to rub it in his face that he’s having a heart-boner for Keith in person, and Lance decides that this is the absolute worst day of his life. But at least Pidge offered to buy him baozi. “God, don’t remind me.”

Pidge gives him a knowing look. “You’ve got it bad, dude.”

“Fuck off.”

“By the way, Hunk is coming by to tell you how much of an idiot you are,” Pidge says. 

“All of you are horrible people and you should just leave you alone,” says Lance, and he fake-sobs while mauling a baozi. “Buy me some noodles, though.”

“Asshole.”

“LANCE! My main man, my dude, my  _ boiiii—” _

“I”m a failure,” Lance wails. Hunk coos reassuringly and pats his head. 

“You’re not a failure, bro.”

“I’m totally a failure.”

Hunk sighs and sits down opposite Lance, stealing one of Pidge’s kimchi buns. “You’ve got it that bad? For the  _ Fire Nation?  _ Dude.”

“I know, right?” Lance says incredulously, looking up to take a sip of his tea. It’s cold. And bitter. Dammit. “How much you wanna bet that he did some weird witchery on me to make me have a heart boner for him? Some weird Fire Nation shaman or something. I don’t know. I feel like shit.”

“You’re just a dumbass in love,” Hunk tells him and Lance feels like crying.  _ Oh,  _

Okay. It’s okay. Lance is a big boy. He’s two months away from turning twenty-four. He has his own apartment. He’s a world-famous model, for spirits’ sake. He should be able to get over a minuscule crush. 

Sure, it  _ might _ be a crush on his supposed-to-be sworn enemy, but it’s also just a crush and Lance knows everything that there is to be known about crushes. He gets them all the time. He knows how to deal with them. 

“I’m going to Elementals,” he announces. Pidge spews barley tea all over herself and Hunk looks between them two like he’s expecting an explanation. 

“Absolutely fucking not,” Pidge says, as Hunk asks, “What the hell is an Elementals?”

* * *

Elementals is a club, run by one of the Triads. Lance doesn’t like to frequent it often, since there’s a lot of messy messy things that go down there, teetering on the edge of legality, and also: their drinks ain’t shit. There are classier clubs to go to than Elements. There are safer clubs to go to than Elementals. Literally  _ all _ clubs are better than Elementals.

But no classy (or non-classy) club tops Elementals in its seedy roughness and amount of people looking for a good night. Lance knows exactly what’s going on. He’s just horny. That must be all there is to it. He simply has to get the energy out of him and then  _ boom, _ baby, Keith and him are just friends again. 

There is a small voice in his head, though, that asks softly, when were Keith and him only ever  _ friends? _

Lance shakes his head and effectively gets rid of that little hopeful voice. He’s not a crush person. He’s not a write love letters behind bushes and benches and tuck it in a windowsill person. He’s not a domestic person. 

He is a skate on thin ice kind of person, jump off a waterfall with nothing but hope (and his bending), dance drunk on a cliff, bring a knife to a gunfight kind of person. 

Lance is quite literally  _ everything _ but naïve, but here he is, acting like a spirits-damned schoolgirl with a puppy crush for the past few months. He’s never been that sort of person, and he’d never thought he’d be that sort of person. Like, ever. But here he is now. 

There is a quick fix to it, though, which he’s going through with right now. 

“Lance, bud,” Hunk says, knocking on his closet door—imagine  _ that, _ he has an actual walk-in now; he could have only dreamed of having this many clothes back in the South Pole—and poking his head behind the door. “Are you sure you don’t wanna talk about this?”

“I’m fine,” Lance says stiffly, fixing his cuffs. 

“Bro,” says Hunk with a frown, “I know you. You’re my best friend. This Keith thing doesn’t seem like it’s  _ just _ a crush. I don’t think you’re going to make it better by going out and finding a random hookup. I think you’re going to end up making it worse.”

Lance tightens his belt and pushes a pair of hoops through his earlobes. He turns to Hunk, flashing an award-winning smile. “Hunky boy. My dude. my mans. I got this. It’s just a buildup of sexual tension in my bod. It’s fine.”

Hunk opens his mouth to interrupt. Lance hods up a finger. “Tomorrow morning, I’m gonna call you, and then we’ll laugh about this whole situation together with Pidge at my favorite café, yeah? Chill. I’m fine. I know what I’m doing.”

Hunk looks unconvinced. “I still think it’s a bad idea. Pidge is running numbers on how probable it is that you’re going to come back here crying about how you fucked up and it’s not just a crush. We’re your best friends, Lance. Trust us.”

“Bromie,” says Lance, striding across to stand in front of Hunk, settling his hands on his shoulders, “I’ve got this. I’ll be fine.”

“I just think—“

“You’re acting like Veronica right now, and I do not need to associate my older sister with you,” Lance says. “I’m fine. Stop fussing.”

Hunk sighs. “If you say so.”

“I’m fine, dude, just look at me!” Lance twirls, light catching on his rings and flashing like brilliant falling stars. Internally, he thinks that he looks like a veritable sleazebag looking to pick up broke kids off the street. But he’s flashing money and really, that’s all that matters in Elementals. “You think a heart-sick fool would be acting like this?”

“A heartsick fool would act exactly like you,” Hunk deadpans. 

“You wound me.”

Hunk gives him a flat look. “Uh huh.”

“Dude,” says Lance, “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry. I’m not going off to war.”

“Yeah,” Hunk says with a sigh. He waves at Lance half-heartedly, looking much too disappointed for Lance’s tastes, but now he’s got his blessing, and he’s ready to fucking rumble.

* * *

Lance realizes too late that Elementals is really, really loud. He can’t hear his thinking. He can’t hear anything but badly timed bass drops and the awkward shuffling of feet. He can’t. Hear. 

All the better for making very bad decisions late at night, at least.

He makes a beeline for the bar, tossing down a twenty and asking for a Sozin’s Comet. They, being Elementals, water down their vodka. Sozin’s Comet is watered down vodka and watered down tequila mixed with a healthy dollop of capsaicin paste. It burns when it goes down, but it’s not because of the alcohol. 

There’s a ribbon of black hair that he notices in the undulating crowd, swaying with the beat. 

If he’s getting rid of a crush, he might as well find a doppelganger.

* * *

There is a thundering crash, and Lance wakes up with a start. 

“Wha—what the hell’s goin’ on?” he mumbles, tossing off the covers and squinting blearily at his closed door. There is another crash. Oh, he’s getting robbed. He hopes the thief won’t take his sculptures. He’d spent time on those stupid things.

The other side of the bed is mussed, and there’s a long, coiling black hair left behind on the pillow, almost a sorry for leaving without telling you note. Lance sighs and tugs on a shirt, clumsily knocking around in his closet, and walks out into the weird strip of space between his door and his railing, looking down to the living room to find a very solemn Hunk and a stricken Pidge. 

“Who the hell was making that noise?” 

His head hurts. He never gets hangovers if he’s at Elementals. Which means—they went to another club or a bar before he inevitably dragged them back here. Oh, hell. 

“Lance,” Hunk says slowly, “you’re a fucking idiot.”

He gags and rushes to the trash can before a barrage of vomit steadily makes its way up his throat. “Yell at me later. I’m dying.”

Pidge starts to laugh like a maniac. “Dude, don’t tell him. This is so funny. Lance, you’re a fucking idiot.”

Lance spits out the last vestiges of vomit, hugging the cold metal cylinder like a comfort bear. “Yeah. What was that noise?”

“Don’t tell him,” Pidge hisses, smacking Hunk on the shoulder rapidly. “This is all his fault.”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Lance laments, falling spread-eagled on the ground and sobbing. “You guys started a conspiracy in, like, the six hours I’ve been out.”

Hunk scoffs disbelievingly. “Oh, you’ve been out for more than six hours, dude. It’s 3 P.M. and you’ve missed practice. Your sponsor was going to break the damn door down until I told him that you were down with the vine disease.”

“Wha’ the hell’s the vine plague,” Lance slurs. 

“Me too, man,” Hunk says darkly. “I made it up. Be happy your sponsor is nothing more than a shitty businessman.”

“Uh-huh,” says Lance. It hurts to see. And to hear. He kind of just wants to sit in the Tree of Time again; it was so quiet and peaceful and there were no people disturbing his goddamn sleep. Maybe in a void for a little bit. 

“You’re an idiot,” Pidge says again, sitting down cross-legged next to Lance. “How have you fucked up so badly?”

“Dunno.” Lance reaches up towards one of the glowing light fixtures. He needs to get some new ones. “I just do. It’s like, my thing. I attract trouble.”

Pidge laughs. “You know who you banged last night?”

“Nope,” Lance says, sounding proud of himself for a reason he can’t understand. “I can’t seem to remember a thing. Killer hangover. You think I can heal myself?”

“Idiot,” Pidge says fondly. 

* * *

It turns out that he has not, in fact, gotten over Keith. It’s almost as if the crush has gotten worse, almost, which makes no fucking sense because, like, it’s just a normal crush. Crushes don’t last this long. 

Lance suffers through practice after practice and texts Keith too often, getting monosyllabic answers and lately, no answers at all. His team wins the championship for the fourth time in a row, and he’s rolling in so much cash that it seems stupid to keep competing. 

He sprains his ankle after Miya, the earthbender on his team, sends a rock disk flying to his feet, and he had jumped up a second too late. The doctor tells him he’s not allowed on his feet for the next two weeks, and Lance wonders if the devil has something against him. 

Keith still hasn’t texted back.

That’s the thing, see, he’s temporarily kicked off the team, his foot’s, like, dead, and the thing he keeps focusing on like a fucking idiot is the fact that Keith hasn’t responded to any of his calls. Or his texts. Or Var-gram tags. (Or Var-gram DMs, for that matter.) 

Lance downloads Bendr, you know, like an idiot, and the first option he gets is horridly ironic, like the spirits have some sort of thing against him. The moment he fills out his information and clicks the little button that says, Get Started With Potential Bending Matches!, he gets fucking _Keith_. 

The algorithm clearly has something going for him.

He ends up using one of the phones one of his fans had sent as a birthday gift, after he throws his phone against the wall so hard it dents. Thank the spirits for the Var-cloud.

After he re-downloads Var-gram onto his new phone, the first thing he does is check his DMs. Keith must have responded by this point. The longest he held a grudge was for eight hours, two minutes, and fifteen seconds. Lance had kept a timer going. 

His most recent message is from Veronica, who’d sent him his story from yesterday, which was him, chilling in a hospital bed with fingers in a V, duck-lipped, and had attached: 

veronica  
  
you’re such a fucking dweeb.   
  
mom wants to know when you’re going to come back.   
  
she misses you.  
  
so does dad.  
  
and like, everyone else, you idiot.  
  


Lance smiles faintly when he reads it. He sends back: 

veronica  
  
no u  
  


Keith is active on his social media, he’s just not. Responding to Lance. At all. In the past week, he’s posted seventeen new photos and churns out five stories every two hours. He’s plenty active. But he also hasn’t even opened any of Lance’s DMs. 

Something was definitely wrong, but Lance doesn’t know what. 

* * *

He works up the courage to do it after eight shots of tequila. Pidge cackles when he tells her what he’s going to do, and Hunk just looks defeated. 

keitheyboi   
  
d00de!! where jave yu BEEN ive miseed u wtffff :((  
  
don’t u lobe meeeee  
  


Keith responds, this time. This time.

what do you want lance.  
  


Lance frowns down at his phone. It’s too bright. The lights are shifting in a dizzying pattern. Everything’s too much. 

keitheyboi  
  
i miss u tear emoji  
  
right. also, use the emojis instead of the words. it's disconcerting  
  
BRO WYM i mISS YOOOIPUUU ily soO mch  
  
are you drunk?  
  
nooooooooooo im finreeeee wdymnmna  
  
lance, you're definitely drunk. give your phone to hunk or pidge before you start embarrasing yourself.  
  


Hunk’s phone starts buzzing. He silently hands it to Lance. It’s Keith.

Pidge flips her phone around to show the call screen from Keith flashing on. Lance takes another shot.

keitheyboi  
  
dude domt cakl them watre uyo doin  
  
ths inst btwen thrm ita betewen us  
  
lance you are so drunk you can't even spell right. please, for the love of roku, go home. we can talk later. i've just been really busy.  
  
uhahuhh Buyyys thats al ie if. iv e evrr senne omne   
  
lance, please.  
  
liistn tome ee  
  
lance.  
  
im senrirous !!  
  
i swer a a r i pramise   
  
...should i call veronica?  
  
plsssno O dont cll vernoca i jusr wannnd talkkl  
  
not when you're drunk.  
  
what liekd ur gonnna respnnnd loser  
  
im takneg my chna ce whne i can k  
  
i mss yiou a laot  
  
like al to  
  
maks em saed that yoiu dont rspeond  
  
keith i mis u .  
  
lance.  
  
noOo shut i wana tal k   
  
you're going to end up saying a lot of things you regret.  
  
wahht did i say u s h uht pleasee  
  
im iss u a lot  
  
i wnndre why yooi arent resdpdinding to mtt texts whennnnn i sendsss them  
  
iamgkkasjfsd mssii u  
  
misssssss u allo to  
  
m sorry if i dod sonatheming  
  
relay im sr oy  
  
wa tdid id o o  
  
you don’t remember, do you.  
  
idkkk what i dkd im sor y s y  
  
lance.  
  
k e uthh  
  
we'll talk later in the morning. get pidge and hunk to take you home, you idiot.  
  
oka ie y fkn e   
  
thank you.  
  
il o yve u   
  
a li ot   
  
u doan t go ta a say ut ba ck i kn ow howu are with tat h sorra stuf f a  
  
buuuut i l ov ue you  
  


**Read** 1:20 AM

Lance just wants to curl up in a ball and never talk, eat, drink, or hear again. Everything hurts. He thinks faintly that his sponsor’s going to kill him before he remembers that he’s out because of his stupid ankle. Thank the spirits for that, at least. 

He stumbles into the bathroom and gets the water pouring in his tub. Being in water would make him feel better, hopefully. When the tub is full-ish, he gets in, clothes and all.

“I’m washin’ me AND my clothes, bitch!” he hiccups to himself quietly. 

The water works. It’s cool against his burning skin, a soothing salve to the horrors of last night. He can taste the vomit in his mouth, the rancid taste only amplified by sleep.

A knock comes on the bathroom door. Lance lets his head loll against the rim of the tub and waves a hand. “Come in.”

He wonders, faintly, if his vision is just blurry or if it’s  _ Keith _ standing in front of him. It can’t be him. He’s, like, in the Fire Nation or something. Not here.

“Hi.”

“Mmh,” Lance says.

“You okay, Lance?” Keith asks softly, walking towards the tub. Lance laughs mournfully.

“I feel like shit.”

Keith chuckles. “How much did you drink last night?”

Lance turns his head to look at Keith. The window above the tub lets in plenty of sunlight and it frames his face, filling in the hollow under his cheekbones with dark shadow and slipping over his nose and lips like liquid gold. He is so very beautiful, Lance thinks. He looks like a king. Like he’s supposed to be. 

Not like Lance, who’s a regular failure.

“Not enough,” he says, throat dry. 

“I… I saw your text last night,” Keith starts, and Lance groans, throwing his head back and wincing when it hits the marble. 

“Ugh.”

“Listen, Lance—”

“You don’t love me back, yeah, I got it, it’s chill. Nothing to say about it. Sorry for dragging you all the way over here.”

“Lance—”

“It’s. Chill.” Lance makes a water-hand to wave at Keith. “Gimme like, a few weeks. I’ll get over it.”

Keith huffs. “Lance.”

“I’m sorry, okay!”

_ “Lance.” _

“What, didn’t you hear me?” Lance turns to Keith angrily, splashing water everywhere. A drop rolls down Keith’s cheek like a tear. “I’m fine. Gimme like, a week. It’ll even out.”

“Lance,” Keith hisses, crouching down to look him in the eye, “you fucking bastard, listen to me. Stop interrupting me. I love you, you idiot. You hear me?” 

“Say it again.”

Keith scowls. “You know what I said. Don’t make me say it again.”

Lance smiles stupidly at Keith. “Say it again.”

“Fucking  _ fine, _ asshole,” Keith mutters, tilting his head back to reveal the sharp cliff of his jawline and neck sloping down to his collarbones. “You hear me loud and clear, yeah? I love you, bitch. And I ain’t ever gonna stop loving you,  _ bitch.” _

Lance laughs delightedly and claps his hands and feels akin to a seal. “Excellent. I have one question, though.”

“What.”

“Why did you ghost me for so long,” Lance groans, tilting his head to the side. He makes big, puppy-eyes at Keith. 

“Because you fucking hooked up with me, asshole, and then you never mentioned it.”

Lance’s jaw drops into a neat o. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, dude,” Keith says. 

“I’m an asshole and I have no idea why you like me,” Lance tells him. “You ran away though, so it’s, like, even. Sorry for being a bitch.”

Keith laughs and Lance suddenly wonders why he was even questioning the fact that he is very in love. “It is, as you say,  _ chill. _ I’m sorry for running and being a coward.”

“Mhm,” Lance says triumphantly. He holds out his pinky. “Promise me something.”

Keith wraps his abnormally long pinky around Lance’s. “Hmm?”

“Stay with me?” Lance asks softly, “I dunno about forever, but just for a little while.”

“Sure,” says Keith. “A little while.”

**Author's Note:**

> for my best friend. i hope you know that i love u very much.


End file.
